Mother Earth insensitive Trumpes giving nature and environment the bird.

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

What was the animal they introduced to kill off the prairie dog that ended up co-habitating with them?  Black-footed ferret?

[sys]

This prairie dog breeding and babying season.  How is blowing pregnant mommas and nursing moms sport.  This is not hunting or harvesting game.  It's being a sniper and killing an innocent dang rat that gives mental peace to environmentalists.

it's an unethical pastime.

[Emo EMAW]

It's no more unethical than cattle ranching.

[star seed 7]

You get to turn an animal inside out with a big macho gun, what's not to love sys? High five fellow psychopaths!

[sys]

It's no more unethical than cattle ranching.

that's a Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!) comparison.  it is not (imo, i recognize that there are rational people that disagree) unethical to end an animal's life to provide nourishment for a human or other animal.  to inflict pain and loss of life upon a living creature for no other motivation or higher purpose than because a living target provides you with a frisson of excitement you don't experience with an inanimate target is not ethically comparable to using a living being to provide for the basic necessities of another living being.

[puniraptor]

you forgot to take into account the primal fulfillment emo feels packing 50kg of pulped prairie dog 20 miles through the bush back to his truck to take home and provide for his family

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

If you need moral justification (you shouldn't, they're free range rats, a nuisance and a pest), prairie dogs destroy cropland, which in turn leaves less food for people/livestock.
Or, it's no different than shooting a coyote trying to kill a calf, as the prairie dog is killing crops.

[sys]

i haven't seen too many prairie dogs that will turn a plowshare, but then again, i'm not really looking much.  irregardless, emo isn't sighting in between rows of corn, so it's as stupid of a point as any you've ever posted.

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

i admittedly don't know what I'm talking about, but that's not going to stop from being a stupid prick

They also make holes that cattle break they're legs in.

[sys]

They also make holes that cattle break they're legs in.

i won't say never, but that basically never happens.  cows have pretty good legs.

[Emo EMAW]

They eat feed intended for cattle.  Ranchers who have had me as guests have asked me to shoot them and I did, and enjoyed myself.  They are absolutely pests, and their existence can be at a cost to humans.  It's no different than killing mice in your home, except this can be fun.  There is nothing unethical about having fun doing something that needs done anyway.

It would be more unethical not to kill them when you have the equipment, ability, and time to do so.  It's like when the men of 2nd Ranger Battalion came upon the machine gun nest.  They could have gone around it and still accomplished their mission, but ethically it would have been wrong to leave it there to ambush the next group of soldiers that came through.

[kim carnes]

God forbid another creatures existence inconvenience the human race

[wetwillie]

The irrational hatred of prairie dogs is particularly evident in the “varminters,” who speak reverently of “IVG” (instant visual gratification), experienced when their high-powered bullets make prairie dogs explode in “red mist.” “Red-Mist Society” T-shirts were popular in 1992 when, on another Audubon assignment, I observed a prairie dog shoot in South Dakota, where a bill was later introduced to rename the prairie dog the “prairie rat.” Rich Grable—better known as “Mr. Dog”—rested his .222 rifle on a foam pad taped to the base of his truck window and partly melted by barrel heat. Crack. He cut a target in half, sending hindquarters spinning. “Dead,” he declared, punching his dashboard-mounted kill counter. Babies, standing beside burrows with paws on their siblings’ shoulders, exploded in red mist. Once Grable killed five with a single shot. “Can ya hear it go plop?” he cackled. “Dissolved him! Ha. Ha.” Whenever a target dragged itself back into its burrow, minus major body parts, Mr. Dog would shout: “I done somethin’ to him.” According to his shooting journal, he’d killed 7,652 the previous year.

[bucket]

There is nothing unethical about having doing something that needs done anyway.

[Emo EMAW]

You guys wanna eat declicious longbones and then question the manner in which they are provided.  I'd rather you just say thank you and be on your way.

[Emo EMAW]

Haha known Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!) bucket chimes in. 

[bucket]

 

[SdK]

Love ya, Emo. Good grief, Emo.

I catch the mice and set them free in a field. It will either survive or be a meal for another animal.

[Emo EMAW]

It's not like the carcasses go to waste.  They are eaten by coyotes or hawks or insects or bacteria.  In that sense nothing is wasted. 

[Emo EMAW]

If you're a guest in your grandmas home, and she asks you to kill a spider for her, you do it.  And let's be real, if you could kill it with an AR you would. 

[sys]

They eat feed intended for cattle.  Ranchers who have had me as guests have asked me to shoot them and I did, and enjoyed myself.  They are absolutely pests, and their existence can be at a cost to humans.

the only part of that that is unequivocally true is that many ranchers prefer to kill them or have them killed.  most studies of their effect on cattle forage suggest that they typically either increase forage availability (basically, decrease quantity, but improve quality allowing the cattle to eat more of the low quality forage because they have access to the high protein forage in prairie dog towns) or have no impact.  it depends on the type of grassland, though.  a few studies have found a small decrease in forage availability in some areas.

in exchange they provide a unique habitat used by large numbers of prairie species.  for a handful of species, prairie dogs don't just improve habitat, they are a critical component of the habitat and removing them would likely drive those species to extinction.  calling them pests is ignorant.



i'll also add that recreational shooting is not generally an effective means of eradication, so the attempt to find any non-recreational justification for the activity is essentially dishonest.

[Emo EMAW]

sys you're only listing the pluses.  If you're going to attack this from a logical perspective then you ought to list their negatives, too, otherwise you're being disingenuous.

[sys]

you're completely full of crap, emo.  that's not my fault.

[sys]

let me articulate that better.  when fsd says something stupid about wildlife, i assume it's because he's ignorant on the subject.  you, oth, have an interest and a fair bit of knowledge about wildlife.  so when you sit here repeating inanities and falsehoods, i assume it's in some sort of vain attempt to justify your participation in an activity that is clearly unjustifiable.

[Emo EMAW]

Do you purport there are zero negatives to prairie dogs?  Is that your assertion?

I don't have to justify it to myself.  The OP asked why people do this, and the reasons I've given are reasons people do it.  You haven't refuted that at all.